Consumer Guide (8)

Music fans, alphabetization fans, capitalism fans--come gather round
while I send my implicit support to the market economy (hiss! boo!) by
suggesting that there are real alternatives within the system. Yes,
folks, it's time for another Consumer Guide. Your choice does make a
difference, to you, even if you rip it off, and I'm here to help you
make it.

Anyone who doesn't understand what this is all about should send me a
stamped, self-addressed postcard and I'll explain. A few notes,
however. I am still docking for time--there are three records under 30
minutes in this week's CG--but I have granted a stay of execution to
Unipak. The president of Unipak, a harried-sounding man named Floyd
Glinert, called me a couple of weeks ago to say that he knew his
product had been dreadful during the first few months of its existence
but that now it was improved. Until I check out the improvements
myself I won't dock records that are packed Unipak. Although I will
continue to note the fact. Mr. Glinert has a reason to sound
harried--all kinds of thin doublefolds (an innovation of which I
approve, because conventional double-folds take considerable room on
my crowded shelves) have been devised since he came out with his.

I was going to write a detailed explanation of the B plus rating,
which is crucial to my system, only to find that this list was heavy
with Bs, not B plusses. Well, I'll just say that I rarely play any
record that I rate below B once I've rated it. The ratings go so low
only because records go so low.

CANNED HEAT: Vintage (Janus) I don't care how much you
like the group, this collection of three-year-old tapes, rechanneled
for stereo and running all of 23.12 minutes (that's right, it's really
an E plus) insults your income and your intelligence. Are there really
white blues scholars who want to know what the Bear sounded like when
he was pure? Ridiculous, and sad. E

THE CHAMBERS BROTHERS: Love, Peace, and Happiness
(Columbia) I walked out on the concert at which the live half of
this special-price double album was recorded, and now that the
evidence is in I know I did the right thing. The Chambers were a nice
second-bill group, often an exciting surprise, but they got
flabby. Shameful excess. C MINUS

DILLARD AND CLARK: Through the Darkness, Through the Night
(A&M) D&C succumb to the folk fallacy. That is, they
relate themselves to an alien and/or past musical style, purist
country western, rather than relating the style to themselves, as Gram
Parsons does. The songs are good and well-played, and two cuts--a
brilliant version of "Don't Let Me Down" and Clark's "Corner Street
Bar"--transcend the Bad Concept which ruins this album for me. But I
know damned well that I may never play it again, because basically
it's just another archive. B MINUS

ARETHA FRANKLIN: This Girl's in Love with You (Atlantic)
Fans should buy this immediately even though it's ballad-heavy and not
quite up to her best. Everyone else: consider it. The title tune and
"Let It Be" are outstanding. A MINUS
[Later: B+]

EDDIE HOLMAN: I Love You (ABC) Some of this is almost
palatable sweetie-pie crooning, the rest as bad as "Hey There Lonely
Girl," an early candidate (along with the Temps' Psychedelic
Shack) for Soul Bummer of the Year. Rated just in case anyone
suspects that I like all soul music. D PLUS

JETHRO TULL: Stand Up (Reprise) People who like the
group think this is a great album. I don't like the group. I think it
is an adequate album. B MINUS

LOVE: Out Here (Blue Thumb) Arthur Lee has made a good
career out of anticipating and capitalizing on ideas that were natural
to other people. Sometimes, as on his best Jagger imitations and most
of the Forever Changes studio effects, he has seemed an almost
transcendantly pop figure, and he has always written interesting
songs. This time, unfortunately, he has chosen to play off the super
session idea, larding the two-lp set with some of the most witless
instrumentals in recording history. Har, har, Arthurly. C MINUS

ESTHER MARROW: Newport News, Virginia (Flying Dutchman)
The opening cut, "He Don't Appreciate It," is such an exceptional
example of hard soul (with fantastic arrangement and production by Bob
Thiele) that I recommend the whole album to devotees of the genre. (It
is also available as a single.) the rest is jazz-oriented, good but
uneven: some of the ballads are very weak and there is too much
dependence on long codas. B

COUNTRY JOE MACDONALD: Thinking About Woody Guthrie
(Vanguard) It's the concept of this album that I don't
like. Musically, it's not bad--a nice selection of Woody's tunes
rendered agreeably by Joe and some Nashville sidemen. As an
educational project I suppose it could be called, er, worthwhile. But
anyone who has read this far may consider himself educated; the real
thing is easy to swallow and can be purchased at better record
shops. C

MC5: Back in the USA (Atlantic) At first, this was a
severe disappointment, a rather obvious and awkward attempt, I
thought, to tailor a record to some dimly conceived high school
"underground," with titles like "Teenage Lust" and lines like:
"Young people everywhere are gonna cook their goose/Lots of
kids are working to get rid of these blues" (political italics
mine). The more I listen, however, the more I like it. Under Jon
Landau the 5's style has become choppier, more hard-rock. On one cut,
"Looking at You," Landau's discipline is imposed on the soaring
Sinclair/Coltrane style of their Elektra album, a brilliant
synthesis. The rest still confuses me a little. If it sells it will be
an undeniable masterpiece, if not, an equivocal experiment. Still, I
ask myself, is it a good hard-rock record if I have to hear it five
times before I like it? Why am I writing so much? What is this?
Weird. Sorry, Jon, docked a notch for time: 27.41. B
[Later: A-]

RICK NELSON: In Concert (Decca) I know no one will
believe me, but this is at worst a tasteful country-rock
record--well-conceived, well-played, well-produced. Nelson turns out
to be a likeable singer. If he had replaced "She Belongs to Me" or
"Red Balloon" with an unfamiliar song as good as the ones he has
chosen, and written, this would be a true sleeper. B
[Later: C+]

PEARLS BEFORE SWINE: These Things Too (Reprise) Not such
good work, Peter Edmiston. C

CARL PERKINS AND NRBQ: Boppin' the Blues (Columbia)
Sorry, folks, Carl just can't wear them shoes no more; he is an aging
country singer and he sounds it. As for NRBQ, they were better first
time around. Competent and utterly unexciting, except for the cover,
which should win an award. B MINUS

SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: Bridge Over Troubled Water
(Columbia) Melodic. B

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: A Brand New Me (Atlantic) Gamble and
Huff have done for Dusty--who as a singer has only one peer, Dionne
Warwick--what they did so successfully for Jerry Butler on his last
album, only the formula is wearing thin. The songs (all of them
written in part by Gamble) resemble each other melodically and
rhythmically. The same instruments are used on each cut and vocal mood
is also the same throughout. If only Dusty could bring all of her
moods together--starting with the earliest rock stuff and working
through "Look of Love" and "Preacher Man" and the title cut of this
lp--she would make a great, great album. But Dusty in Memphis is
much better than this, which bears the added burden of one-notch loss
for running shamefully short: 25.32. C PLUS
[Later: B-]

ROD STEWART: The Rod Stewart Album (Mercury) My
prejudice against Stewart (who used to be Jeff Beck's singer) was so
strong that I would never have really listened to this without the
rave notices in Fusion and Rolling Stone. I'm still not
quite convinced. But the music is excellent instrumentally, and
Stewart's singing and composing mostly superb. Maybe it was all Jeff's
fault. A MINUS

SUPER BLACK BLUES (BluesTime) I don't often comment on
blues, hardly my field of expertise, but this is an extraordinarily
mellow jam, with old masters--Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Otis
Spann--wailing away. B PLUS

SWEET THURSDAY (Tetragrammaton) An honest, listenable
record from an English group which may well never make another. Nicky
Hopkins appears on all cuts and is at his best. B

THREE DOG NIGHT: Captured Live at the Forum (Dunhill) I
once had hopes for this group, but success ruined them too,
encouraging all of their most vulgar plastic-nigger excesses. Each of
the (only) nine renditions is more flaccid than the studio version
(that's right, no new material) and the "Tenderness" which closes the
set, admittedly an exciting climax live, doesn't work any better than
it did the first time it was recorded. D PLUS